


Prince of a Thousand Stories

by Lumakiri



Category: Linked Universe - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Linked Universe, Modern AU, Sad Times With Legend, TW for: Mentioned character death, references to suicide and self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24931510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lumakiri/pseuds/Lumakiri
Summary: Legend lives vicariously through his books.He lives for her.
Relationships: Legend (Linked Universe)/Marin (Legend of Zelda), Link/Marin (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 52





	Prince of a Thousand Stories

**Author's Note:**

> THIS ONESHOT DEALS WITH GRIEF, BEREAVEMENT AND REFERENCES TO SUICIDE.

“Legend, you have to come out at some point today. You can’t just shut yourself off from the world every time the anniversary comes around.” Twilight’s voice sounded exhausted through the door. Legend shrugged. He could, and would. It was the only way he could deal with it.  
“I don’t know Twi, I’m doing a pretty fucking good job of it so far.”  
“We’re just trying to help you, asshole,” another voice butted in, angry and brisk. Of course. Warriors. He  _ had _ to be involved. “It’s been three fucking years, you need to start dealing with this in a healthier way.”  
“Nope.” Legend pulled the duvet over his head and stuffed his earbuds back in his ears, just in time for the worst song possible to shuffle onto his playlist.  _ Headlights on Dark Roads _ . God, he loved when the cosmos fucked with him like this.

He didn’t have the strength to change it.

Clutching the battered copy of his childhood book to his chest, he breathed in the scent of its pages and reached under his pillow for that scrap of silk that had belonged to her. For just a little while longer, he wanted to pretend. He wanted to replace all the names in all his stories with hers, just so she could live a life he’d cut short. To believe, just for today, that she was somewhere happy, and free, and safe.

God he hated himself. He hated this day, he hated every day, every fucking sordid unfair day he got to take a breath and she didn’t. How was there a healthier way of dealing with this? How would there ever be a healthy way of coming to terms with blood on your hands?

He didn’t deserve a healthy way of dealing with it. This was his price, his burden, his shame and guilt for the terrible thing he had done. Three years was nothing. This was his for a lifetime.

Legend threw the book across the room, hot and angry tears thick on his cheeks. They trickled down his throat and bloomed wet roses on the silk in his hands. His sobs were strangled, pitying, and he was disgusted at them. Legend forced his own grief into silence.  


“Leg, are you still with me?” Twilight’s voice was softer, this time. They didn’t trust his silence. They always assumed he’d do something stupid. To indulge in that would be sacrilegious to her memory.  “Legend? I will unlock this door if you don’t answer me.”  
“I’m here,” he choked out, wishing the world would just fuck off. The space at his chest felt empty and cold and he immediately regretted hurling the fragile book, sliding off the bed and crawling across the floor to retrieve it.

Pages spilled across the floor from its broken spine.

Legend howled.

How could he be so careless, so fucking stupid? He tried to gather them up, in some vain desperation it could be saved, it could be repaired. His fingers caught on the inside cover, where his uncle’s faded handwriting could still be seen.

_ To my little rabbit.  
_ _ Be cunning, and full of tricks, little prince. _

Another unearthly howl of grief. The lock on his door clicked violently as Twilight struggled for entry. The sound felt very far away. The room felt very far away. All that remained was him, the pages in his hands, and the books that lay scattered across his floor. His books, his only escape to all the lives he might have lived, that they might have lived. And that book most of all, his first, a story read to him a hundred times before he could make sense of the words himself. A tale of bravery, and brotherhood, of fate, and a prince against innumerable odds. And he had destroyed it, like everything else he touched in his life

The lock snapped sideways and Twilight practically fell into the room, the tiniest breath of relief when he saw Legend was uninjured. He sunk down to his side and wrapped him in an embrace that the younger man did not have the strength to resist.

“We can get the book rebound, I know it’s important to you-”  
“It won’t be the same, will it? It won’t ever be the same! Everything I touch I destroy, everything good in my life I fucking break," the pitch in his words rose with hysteria as he let the pages fall from his hands. His uncle was gone. She was gone. And they were all that he wanted.

He had all these brothers around him, and he wanted none of them. What good was he to them? He was a poison, an evil, a curse. Why did they spend so much of their lives trying to better his? He had ruined his three years ago, and there was never going to be another chance. He didn't want to feel better, he didn't want to start again. How dare he live a life when she didn't?  
"I know how much she meant to you, I know it's hard to be without someone you care about, Leg, but-"  
"You don't fucking know, Twilight! You have no fucking clue! Midna is literally a text message away, she's on another continent, she isn't fucking dead. And she left you! She left you! Marin didn't leave me, I fucking killed her!"  
"It was an accident. A freak accident."  
"Why does everyone keep saying that like it's supposed to magically make everything better? It doesn't change the fact it was me."  
"Do you really think she'd want you to fucking eat yourself up like this every fucking midsummer? Do you think this is what she'd want for you?"  
"I don't know Twilight, because the things she wanted for us always factored her being alive into the equation."

Twilight ran a hand through his hair. God, why did Hyrule and Ravio have to be at work on today of all days? They could deal with him. They managed to calm him when he got like this. Twilight was used to handling stubborn goats, not stubborn fucking twenty year olds.  
"I don't know what more I can say, Legend. We do this every year. We go around in these circles, every time you're getting better, you just snap back to this wallowing. This can't carry on. You have to get out into the world, get a job, get a life beyond these four walls and your fucking bookcase."  
"A life without her isn't a life at all." Legend spat, shrugging away from Twilight.  
"Goddesses, no, I'm not doing the self-indulgent poetic talk. I really don't know why the old man lets you stay here rent free. We've all done our fucking best to keep this roof over your head and help you and all you do is continually shove it back in our faces. Well, I'm done, and so is War. I think Hyrule finishes at six. Let him deal with you."

Twilight slammed the door behind him, the broken lock slipping out and dropping in pieces to the carpet. For a long, silent minute, Legend could hear him breathing outside the doorway. Then footsteps on the stairs as he realised Legend wasn't going to respond to that.

He didn't ask to be here. He didn't ask for their help. The only reason he wasn't dead was because he deserved to suffer his punishment, he deserved a life without her. Every day, he could never and would never forget her. He owed it to her to live, and to suffer, and to hurt. It was all he deserved.

His eyes fell back on the front cover of the ruined book. If he strained his eyes with enough belief, he could see where her fingerprints had been, from when she'd held it and read it out to him on difficult nights. The way her tongue curled around the names of his childhood heroes was a sound burned into the back of his skull.

_ Prince. _

She had always called him her prince. His uncle had always called him little prince. In all the stories he had lived so vicariously through for so long, he had been a prince. A prince of fantastic lands, of endangered kingdoms, of men and beast and all in between. She was his princess, his blossom, a delicate creature he was supposed to protect. He didn't care how cliche the stories were, how old the stereotypes. It was all he had, now. Replacing the names and faces of his protagonists with his and hers was the only way he could live.  
Every kiss he read, every touch of skin, every embrace. That's all he had.

A prince of a thousand stories, but the villain of his own.

His chest ached, and he pressed his forehead against the cover, willing those ghostly fingertips to curl through his hair, to dance down the nape of his neck and plant kisses there. He craved her touch so desperately his soul, if he still had one, throbbed.

She had been so young. Sixteen, with the world at her feet. Voice of a goddess, that would have taken her far by itself, but with the beauty and wisdom of one to match. Sunset locks and olive skin. He closed his eyes and willed the image of her back into his mind.

But the image was faded, rotting at the edges. Sometimes, she felt so very far away. He couldn't remember how she smelled, anymore. The scent had long died off the silk under his pillow. And the harder he tried to recall, the more vivid and violent the memory of the last time he had seen her became.

The broken spine of the novel at his lips was her form curved around the metal and glass of that fucking car and he could smell the acrid fumes, taste the tang of blood in his mouth, feel the heat of warped engines like it was yesterday.

Three years would never dampen that day. No amount ever would.

_ It was a freak accident. _

No. He knew that was a lie. Accident implied there was nobody to blame.

He could've been faster, swifter, quicker. He could've found the brakes in time. He could've just never taken them on that fucking trip to the beach in the first place. They could've stayed at home and everything would be perfect.

What kind of god let him walk away with bruises and would take her instead?

If she'd just never fallen for him. If she'd never been in his life, she'd be free to shine in somebody else's. He should've said no, should've known better than to let himself believe for a moment he'd really found someone who loved him.  
Someone who loved his stupid rabbit stories.  
Someone who laughed at his dumb jokes.  
Someone who saw beneath the bubblegum hair and sharp tongue and saw someone worth loving underneath.  
If he'd just let her go, she'd still be flying.

He reached for the photo frame on his desk, and stared at her. He'd forgotten her smell. One day he might forget her voice. But he never wanted to forget her smile. He'd burn it into the back of his eyes if he had to.

If he'd just let her go, she'd still be flying, instead of a memory caged in glass.

A gentle rap on his door shook him from his stupor. Sky shuffled into the room, holding two large mugs. Of course, send in the soft one. Legend couldn't refuse the soft one.  
"I brought coffee," the boy smiled, sitting cross legged on the rug next to Legend. No, it wasn't fair to call him a boy. He was only a year younger than Legend and had three times the maturity. Begrudgingly, Legend took one of the mugs. Coffee was coffee, whatever the circumstance.  
"Thanks." He mumbled, taking a sip whilst it was still too hot to taste. He didn't mind the sting on his tongue as it burned. The pain was deserved, familiar, comfortable.  
"Twilight didn't mean what he said. He's just worried about you. We all are."  
"He has a funny way of showing it."  
"You're not exactly easy to deal with yourself," Sky sighed, "But we all just want to help. You don't do anything anymore, Leg. You don't live for any other reason than to punish yourself. Look at this place," he swept an arm around the room, "if it wasn't for Ravio it'd be in a state, he's only been gone four hours and it already is," Sky glanced with disdain to the scattered coffee cups.  
"What's your point, Sky?"  
"My point is that this is your life now. A life without her. And all constantly blaming yourself for what happened will do is make the rest of your life harder to live. You deserve better than this, Legend. You deserve to live."  
"I do live, I live vicariously for both of us,"  
"That isn't living, Legend."  
"What is there, then, Sky? Out there? People I hate, an existence I can't stand. Fifty years of a shitty retail job where I spend the wages on drink to numb the monotony of it all?"  
"The entire world is not this four bedroom flat in Castleton, Legend. There's a world out there to be seen and felt, if you'd just make the first steps. You're too good a person to waste away like this."  
"That's a fucking lie."  
"You are, Legend. Before all this, there wasn't a thing you couldn't master if you didn't put your mind to it. You were the most crazy talented person I knew. The only person cleverer is your sister, and you can't argue that. And you put up all this spite and front but you're kind at heart." Sky sighed. "You loved her more than anything, didn't you?"  
The question was rhetorical.  
Legend nodded anyway.  
"Would she have loved someone who wasn't a good person?"  
He shook his head. No. Marin was too gentle a soul.  
"Then don't you think there's someone else who would see that good in you too? Who'd love you for it?"  
"Sky, I don't want anyone else."  
"People care about you, Legend, because we know what kind of person you can be. We want to see you be that person again. We want our brother back."  
"You only say that because you're stuck with me."  
Sky took a long, despairing swig of coffee.  
"Din and Nayru ask after you every single class I have with them. Every one. You've not said a word to them in at least two years and they still want to know you're doing okay. Ravio, he's seen you every day of this at your lowest and he still lo- he still likes you."  
"They just pity me."  
"They care, Legend. You know they do. Stop listening to the lies in your head."  


Legend didn't respond, instead just draining his coffee cup and placing it carefully next to Sky. The young man, defeated, picked it up and rose to his feet.  
"Please just promise me you'll think about what I've said? And you won't do anything stupid? Twilight hasn't slept all night over you."  
"I haven't done 'anything stupid' since that first year and yet nobody seems to let me forget," He spat, but his tone softened. "I won't, Sky."

Satisified, the dark blonde left, empty coffee cups clinking in his hand down the stairs. Legend, alone with his thoughts, automatically reached for one of the scattered novels on his bedroom floor, and flicked his eyes over the title.

It had been her favourite.

He smiled, despite himself. Yes, this would do. He could imagine her singing to crystals on some distant planet, as brave and intelligent and passionate as she'd always been. He didn't need the world outside. He didn't need memories of her, always ruined and darkened by her last moments. He could make his own up, right here, in his head.

In his head, where he was the prince, and she was safe.

And he could live through a thousand lifetimes of stories with her, instead of just the few precious years he had. He couldn't go back and set her free, he couldn't undo the cage on her coffin.

But at least he could let her dream live on in his pages.


End file.
